Pastoral period

[4][10] At Takarkori rockshelter, Final Pastoral peoples created burial sites for several hundred individuals that contained non-local, luxury goods and drum-type architecture in 3000 BP, which made way for the development of the Garamantian civilization.

[11] Yet, the rather spontaneous development of Central Saharan rock art said to occur in the later 7th millennium BP, which is presented in the short chronology, is its challenge.

[11] While there is some evidence from archaeology to support this spontaneous development in 6500 BP, the amount of evidence from archaeology needed to support the short chronology, in providing explanation of the complex cultural developments (e.g., regional diversification, enduring continuity of local pastoral and pottery traditions, rock art) in the Central Sahara, is lacking.

[14] A terminus post quem for the engraved rock art is established via evidence from archaeology for domesticated animals in the Central Sahara.

[17] Based on the view that some rock art from the Acacus region of Libya portrayed persons with the phenotype (e.g., style and profile of the face) of white people, Savino Di Lernia characterized the Central Saharan pastoral culture that produced the child mummy of Uan Muhuggiag as mixed race.

[22] At Gobero, in Niger, hunter-gatherers dwelled amid the early period of the Holocene and ceased doing so by 8500 BP; after one thousand years of vacancy, pastoralists began dwelling by 7500 BP; these phenotypically (e.g., tall and robust compared smaller and tiny) and culturally (e.g., hunter-gatherer compared to pastoralist) distinct peoples are viewed as being similar to what occurred in the Acacus region of Libya and Tassili region of Algeria.

[20] After having dwelled among one another in the Central Sahara, by 4000 BP, some of the hunter-gatherers, who created the Round Head rock art, may have associated with, admixed with, and adapted the culture of incoming cattle pastoralists.

[20] Osypińska (2021) indicates that an "archaeozoological discovery made at Affad turned out to be of great importance for the entire history of cattle on the African continent.

A large skull fragment and a nearly complete horn core of an auroch, a wild ancestor of domestic cattle, were discovered at sites dating back 50,000 years and associated with the MSA.

[33] Near Nabta Playa, in the Western Desert, between 11th millennium cal BP and 10th millennium cal BP, semi-sedentary African hunter-gatherers may have independently domesticated African cattle as a form of reliable food source and as a short-term adaptation to the dry period of the Green Sahara, which resulted in a limited availability of edible flora.

[37] In the late period of the Pleistocene as well as the early and middle periods of the Holocene in West Africa and North Africa, peoples with Sudanese, Mechtoid, and Proto-Mediterranean/Proto-Berber skeletal types (which are outdated, problematic physical anthropological concepts) occupied these regions, and thus, occupied the Central Sahara (e.g., Fozziagiaren I, Imenennaden, Takarkori, Uan Muhuggiag) and Eastern Sahara (e.g., Nabta Playa).

[38] Proto-Berbers, who have been viewed as having migrated into the Central Sahara from Northeast Africa, have been associated with the latter “white-face rock art style” (e.g., pale-skinned figures, beads, long dresses, cattle, cattle-related activities) that emerged in Tassili N’Ajjer in 3500 BCE.

[38] The inconsistencies within the view that Proto-Berbers migrated from Northeast Africa and brought the platform tumuli tradition into the Central Sahara is that the measurements for the skeletal types of the Central Sahara do not begin to match the skeletal types of Northeast Africa until after 2500 BCE and the constructing of platform tumuli at Adrar Bous, in Niger, began in 3500 BCE.

[38] In the Western Sahara, the pastoralist-associated hearths, pottery from the Late Neolithic, and the most common type of Western Saharan tumuli – cone-shaped tumuli (which emerged earliest in Niger by 3750 BCE and has connections with the Mediterranean), are probably associated with Protohistoric Berbers[38] At Gobero, in Niger, the period that has been characterized as pastoral is based on only two cattle remnants and an absence of sheep/goat remnants; until the end of the mid-Holocene, there is limited evidence for nomadic lifeways; there is also anatomical evidence that is indicative of general population continuity amid the mid-Holocene at Gobero.

[38] The traits (e.g., hierarchy, social complexity) of the earlier Central Saharan pastoral culture contributed to the latter development of state formation in West Africa, Nubia, and the Sahara.

[38] In 10,000 BP, the tropical monsoon rain system from Sub-Saharan western Africa changed direction and moved northward into the Central Sahara.

[17] As the monsoon rain system moved northward into the Central Sahara, amid a period which brought along with the development of a savanna environment (akin to the savanna environments of contemporary Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe), egalitarian black African hunter-gatherers also migrated northward into the Central Sahara (e.g., Uan Muhuggiag rock shelter, Acacus Mountains, Libya).

[17] At the Uan Muhuggiag rock shelter, around 5600 BP, a two and a half year old Sub-Saharan African boy (determined through examination of the complete set of human remains, which included a Negroid skull and remnants of dark skin) was mummified (e.g., embalmed, eviscerated – removal of organs from the abdomen, chest, and thorax, followed by replacement with organic preservatives to prevent decomposition, and wrapped in the skin of an antelope and leaves for insulation) utilizing advanced mummification methods.

[17] As the child mummy of Uan Muhuggiag was buried with a necklace made from ostrich eggshells, this may indicate that it was a compassionate, ceremonial burial relating to the afterlife.

[17] Though the descendants of the people of Uan Muhuggiag may have vacated the region five hundred years after the embalming of the child of Uan Muhuggiag due to increasing aridification, and the occurrence of demic diffusion is possible, it is more likely that knowledge from the Central Saharan pastoral culture may have been transmitted into the Nile Valley through cultural diffusion in 6000 BP.

[39] Thus, by this time, cattle religion (e.g., myths, rituals) and cultural distinctions between genders (e.g., men associated with bulls, violence, hunting, and dogs as well as burials at monumental funerary sites; women associated with cows, birth, nursing, and possibly the afterlife) had developed.

[39] Preceded by assumed earlier sites in the Eastern Sahara, tumuli with megalithic monuments developed as early as 4700 BCE in the Saharan region of Niger.

[39] These megalithic monuments in the Saharan region of Niger and the Eastern Sahara may have served as antecedents for the mastabas and pyramids of ancient Egypt.

[40] The Agades cross, a fertility amulet worn by Fulani women, may be associated with the hexagon-shaped carnelian piece of jewelry depicted in the rock art at Tin Felki.

[42] The annual Lotori ceremonial rite, held by Fulani herders, occurs at a selected location and period of time,[43] and commemorates the ox and its origination in a source of water.

[43] The interpretation of composition six as portraying the Lotori ceremonial rite, along with other forms of evidence, have been used to support the conclusion that modern Sub-Saharan West African Fulani herders are descended from peoples of the Sahara.

[6] In the collective memory of Early Pastoral peoples, rockshelters (e.g., Fozzigiaren, Imenennaden, Takarkori) in the Tadrart Acacus region may have served as monumental areas for women and children, as these were where their burial sites were primarily found.

[8] While the possible reason (e.g., appeal for rain, convey cultural identity, death, drying of the Sahara, initiation, marriage, transhumance) for the occurrence of cattle sacrificial ceremonies may not be able to verified, it may be the case that they occurred during events when distinct pastoral groups assembled together.

[49] The two naturally mummified women carried basal haplogroup N.[52] In 5000 BP, the development of megalithic monuments (e.g., architecture) increased in the Central Sahara.